A good talent, especially in karting, who was unable to make significant inroads despite being the 1998 German Formula 3 champion, he went to the Dallara Nissan series, before becoming Minardi's Formula 1 test and reserve driver in 2004. Leinders then went into GT racing and saloon car racing in his homeland. More recently though, Leinders has become a team boss, both in NASCAR's European Series and then running his own GT team. In 2016, Bas, who also still works in Belgian media, became the sporting director for McLaren's entire GT programme, which he continued until the end of 2017, having involvement in McLaren's Young Driver programme. In 2018, he concentrated more on his sports management roles.